Uncle rapes 17-year-old

Kalutara North Police have arrested a man who had repeatedly raped his 17-year-old niece and arrested his wife too for aiding and abetting in the rape and subsequent botched abortion.

The girl had begun bleeding profusely when she was raped after she had conceived and had been admitted to a hospital in Kalutara.

The girl had come to live with her grandmother when her father had died. She had been handed over to her uncle. The man had later coerced his wife into bringing the girl into his room for sex, Police said. The suspect had quarrelled with his wife until she relented and obeyed him. He had also assaulted her during the period that the three of them had lived under the same roof, with the girl compelled to submit to sexual relations with him.

Under questioning the woman had told Police the girl had conceived and when she had begun bleeding had been taken to a quack who botched an abortion bid at a medical centre in Panadura. The girl's condition had worsened and had to be hospitalized.

The man and woman had fled the area with their two children fearing the girl would die or reveal her fate to the Police.

Kalutara North Police are now in search of the girl's grandmother, the doctor who carried out the abortion and the taxi driver who assisted in taking the girl to the medical clinic in Panadura.